This has morphed into a study group from a former Intro to MYSQL class

WE will be 'rebooting' Tues 2013.01.15 and running in synchronization with an Intro to Databases Class being given free online by stanford university

Here is her intro to the course

I wanted to introduce you to a course coming this January,

Join me in the second public offering of my popular course, Introduction to Databases. In Fall 2011, tens of thousands of students joined Introduction to Databases when it was offered as one of Stanford's three inaugural MOOCs. If you missed it then, here's your chance to take the course, once again offered free to the public. Materials have been improved and expanded since the original offering, and the course will be hosted by Stanford's open-source online platform, Class2Go.

Why learn about databases? Databases are incredibly prevalent -- they underlie technology used by most people every day if not every hour. Databases reside behind a huge fraction of websites; they're a crucial component of telecommunications systems, banking systems, video games, and just about any other software system or electronic device that maintains some amount of persistent information. In addition to persistence, database systems provide a number of other properties that make them exceptionally useful and convenient: reliability, efficiency, scalability, concurrency control, data abstractions, and high-level query languages.

This ten-week public course covers database design and the use of database management systems for applications. It includes extensive coverage of the relational model, relational algebra, and SQL. It also covers XML data including DTDs and XML Schema for validation, and the query and transformation languages XPath, XQuery, and XSLT. The course includes database design in UML, and relational design principles based on dependencies and normal forms. Many additional key database topics from the design and application-building perspective are also covered: indexes, views, transactions, authorization, integrity constraints, triggers, on-line analytical processing (OLAP), JSON, and emerging NoSQL systems.

Working through the entire course provides comprehensive coverage of the field, but most of the topics are also well-suited for "a la carte" learning.

The course does not assume prior knowledge of any specific topics, however a solid computer science foundation -- a reasonable amount of programming, as well as knowledge of basic computer science theory -- will make the material more accessible.

Introduction to Databases begins January 15, 2013. Find out more and register here: [1]